Register 2020 Edition
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EXETER COLLEGE REGISTER 2020 Cover image of Exeter College by Ian Fraser is available as a print from www.vaprints.co.uk Contents From the Rector 2 From the President of the MCR 8 From the President of the JCR 10 From the Chaplain 12 From the Librarian 14 Obituaries 19 Incoming Fellows 39 Rector’s Seminars, Symposium, Subject Family Dinners, and Webinars 43 From the Organ Scholar 46 The Governing Body 48 Honorary Fellows 50 Emeritus Fellows 51 Selected Publications 53 Honours, Appointments, and Awards 56 College Lecturers 56 The College Staff 59 Class Lists in Honour Schools 64 Distinctions in Preliminary Examinations, and First Class in Moderations 65 Graduate Degrees 67 University Prizes 71 College Prizes 72 Major Scholarships, Studentships, and Bursaries 74 Graduate Freshers 80 Undergraduate Freshers 85 Visiting Students 91 Births 92 Deaths 92 Notices 94 Contributors 95 1 Editorial I took over editing the Register in 2015, and have appreciated the work of all who have contributed to it, not least to Matt Baldwin, for his skill in editing and patience with my dithering. But it is time for me to pass on the Register. I wish my successor every success, and thank you, dear readers, for your continued commitment. From the Rector Each academic year at Exeter is difficult to summarise. This proved particularly true of 2019/20, during which six months of normal in-person activity were followed by six months of pandemic-induced virtual events, academic and otherwise. Inevitably much attention focused on coping with the effects on the College of Covid-19. Intricate planning occurred, both for the entirely online Trinity Term and, during the Long Vacation, for the return of students at the end of September 2020. Simply coping with the blizzard of constantly shifting ‘guidance’ from Government, the University and the Conference of Colleges was a challenge. Fortunately the famous friendliness and coherence of Exeter came to the fore. Fellows dealt with their own increased childcare responsibilities while adapting to online teaching. Staff adjusted, in many cases, to ‘furloughing’. Students had to make equally great changes in routine. All three groups came together in the College’s Covid-19 Action Group, which has done much to help Exeter make the best of the formidable difficulties brought on by the pandemic. Meanwhile, many alumni contributed to a fund for special problems associated with Covid-19. Exonians were tolerant of postponed in-person activities, and they logged on in large numbers to virtual chapel services and webinars (see the separate article on rector’s seminars, subject family dinners and webinars). Another part of the explanation for the College’s relatively smooth passage through the initial six months of the pandemic can be found in the considerable momentum built up during the comparatively trouble-free first six months of the academic year. During all twelve months, also, progress was made on issues unrelated to Covid-19, especially in starting to implement key aspects of the College’s 2019-29 Strategic Plan. Many of these advances related to the goal of greater diversity, especially appropriate during an academic year which featured enthusiastic celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the advent at Exeter of female Students, Fellows, and Rectors. Also, the College, having piloted its ‘Exeter Plus’ bridging programme for incoming students in September 2019, mounted a fortnight’s course, despite pandemic constraints, in September 2020. Exeter weathered the English A-level crisis of August 2020, 2 Participants in the 2020 Exeter Plus bridging programme with Tutor for Admissions Professor Conall Mac Niocaill (back left) Admissions Professor for with Tutor Participants in the 2020 Exeter Plus bridging programme 3 applying individual scrutiny to aspiring undergraduates whose chances of meeting their admissions offers were endangered by the Government’s controversial algorithm. As a result, without lowering academic standards, Exeter confirmed the offers of all its home offer-holders before the Government’s U-turn. One result was an especially diverse group of undergraduate freshers for entry in October 2020. Meanwhile, a Black Lives Matter working group combining Fellows and Students made progress on projects such as a racial equality collection in the College Library and a series of themed seminars. There were also major steps forward regarding other priorities. Statute revision made considerable progress, with an updated framework for the College’s activities given tentative approval by the Governing Body in late September 2020. An environmental working group, combining Students and Fellows, began to map out an ambitious programme designed to produce, eventually, carbon neutrality. In a related development, Exeter added ESG goals to the objectives of its investment policy. With regard to the Strategic Plan’s goal of enhanced non-academic support, the College expanded welfare provision. Last but far from least, the objective of improved academic support inspired considerable advances in refining plans for the much-needed restoration and renovation of the Library on the historic site at Turl Street. The Library project features largely in the fundraising themes developed during the academic year, which also give considerable emphasis to topics such as access and student support. For Exeter’s students, the first two terms of the academic year followed customary patterns. First-year undergraduates, visiting students from Williams College and graduate students attended elaborate induction programmes and freshers’ dinners. The College celebrated the festivals of Diwali, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Burns Night and Chinese New Year in Exeter’s distinctively stylish way. Rector’s Collections occurred, as usual, in early December and early March, and postgraduate as well as undergraduate students attended the four ‘subject family dinners’ in record numbers. Also, although the pandemic prevented Ex Vac from holding its annual holidays for disadvantaged local children, Hannah Morris (2019, English) undertook a 54-mile riverside walk which raised money to address the knotty problem of homelessness in Oxford. Similarly, while weather and pandemic contrived to prevent any competitive intercollegiate rowing in 2019-20, Exeter students had substantial sporting achievements, at the University level, in activities as different as skiing, Rugby League, women’s rugby and – darts! Meanwhile, Exeter students were very active in promoting cultural events, especially through the annual Turl Street Arts Festival. The customary annual dinner was held for second-year students and their parents, to say nothing of the traditional ‘halfway Hall’. In early March, assisted by the highest ever number of volunteers from the JCR, undergraduate offer holders and their families gathered at Cohen Quad for a lively day of briefings and socialising. Then, shortly after Hilary Term ended, the world suddenly changed with the imposition of the lockdown. Apart from a distinct minority of mainly international undergraduates, and a few dozen largely international postgraduates, College accommodation began six months of emptiness. As Trinity Term started, the College 4 Exeter students visited Williams College, MA in January 2020 5 Ball (very sadly) had to be postponed; in fact, no in-person social occasions occurred. Yet the JCR and MCR staged imaginative online study and social events, and real academic momentum developed. Indeed Exeter scored a record number of Firsts. Meanwhile, the system of graduate review sessions, newly focused on first year postgraduates, was heavily subscribed, and Exeter’s graduate students had many successes in master’s examinations and D.Phil. vivas. For Exeter’s alumni, too, 2019/20 had two very distinct halves. Many of those who had matriculated in the first year of coeducation, 1979, attended a reunion dinner in November on the evening before the College’s celebratory colloquium. Alumni also participated in subject dinners for Classics and Law (the Fortescue Society). Then came the inevitable postponements – of the March and June Gaudies, of visits to Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Washington and California, of the annual 1314 Society garden party and Boat Club Dinner – and of much else besides. Yet attendance was good at ‘Virtual Gaudies’ in June and September and at a number of webinars. Also, just as Exeter biomedical academics, graduate students and even undergraduates rallied to the pandemic cause, so did Exonians elsewhere, notably Dick Celeste (1960, History) who headed Ohio’s Covid testing task force, and Marie-Claire Condonier Segger (2003, Law) who organised online Oxford-style tutorials for schoolchildren. Even in a pandemic year, of course, there were many instances of illustrious achievements by Exonians. Examples include: the appointment of Jonathan Hall (1992, Physics & Philosophy) as an external member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee; the launching by Betty Makharinsky (2012, Music) and Amelia Anderson (2012, Music) of the new open-air opera Vache Baroque Festival; the CB for public service received by Jeremy Pocklington (1992, Modern History); the Points of Light Award from the Prime Minister of Pakistan to Hamza Farrukh (Williams, 2013) for his work supplying safe drinking water; the appointment of Jonathan Wilkinson (1988 PPE) as Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change; and the reappointment of Matt Hancock (1996, PPE) to the key role of UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Inevitably, especially during a pandemic, there were also a number of alumni deaths, most notably that of Sir John Laws (1963, Literae Humaniores), retired judge of the Court of Appeal, one of the UK’s most respected jurists, and an Honorary Fellow of Exeter. Speaking of Fellows, as usual they had a number of notable accomplishments during academic year 2019/20. These included the award to Oreet Ashery (Fine Art) of a Turner Bursary, the election of Professor Ervin Fodor (Virology) to the Academy of Medical Sciences; and the appointment of Professor Andrew Farmer (General Practice) as Director of the Health Technology Assessment Programme of the National Institute of Health Research.